There’s a faster lens switcher that uses Haptic Touch to switch between the two focal lengths in the iPhone 11 (wide and ultra wide) and the three focal lengths in the iPhone 11 Pro (wide, ultra wide, and telephoto). Halide’s developers say it’s quicker, smoother and more intuitive than the standard lens switcher.

On the iPhone 11 Pro, there’s a new Lens Guides feature designed to help users compose shots. The Lens Guides appear when the lens switcher tool is opened, providing overlays of what a shot would look like using a different focal length.

There are no manual focus controls for the ultra wide-angle camera in Halide, and that’s because the lens has a fixed focus. The ultra wide-angle camera is not capable of RAW output, nor does Apple’s outside the frame feature work with RAW. Halide hasn’t added outside the frame functionality at this time.

Smart RAW has been updated for iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, with the exposure engine tuned to produce RAW shots with less noise. Smart RAW improvement for the new iPhones is an ongoing product though, with Halide planning to add additional refinements in the future.

For older iPhones, the new version of Halide includes bug fixes and enhancements, along with RAW exposure improvements for all Smart RAW iPhones.

Halide can be downloaded from the App Store for $5.99. [Direct Link]

China‘s President Xi Jinping opened celebrations on Tuesday to mark 70 years of Communist rule vowing that “no force” would be able to shake the country, as a massive parade of troops and military hardware showcased Chinese muscle in the face of an unprecedented challenge to its authority in Hong Kong. 

“There is no force that can shake the foundation of this great nation,” Xi told invited delegates as he stood at the Tiananmen Square gate where Mao Zedong declared the People’s Republic of China in October 1949.

“No force will be able to stop the steady march forward of the Chinese people and Chinese nation.” 

Authorities in Beijing have closed roads, banned the flying of kites, and even ordered pigeons to be caged amid tightened security for the invitation-only event to celebrate China’s journey from war-ravaged country to the world’s second-largest economy. 

After his speech, Xi, the country’s most powerful leader since Mao, reviewed the massed troops from the rear of an open-topped Red Flag or Hongqi limousine.

New weapons – including a hypersonic ballistic nuclear missile capable of breaching anti-missile defences to reach the United States – were rolled out across the tarmac.

Behind the projection of strength at the tightly-choreographed event, Xi is facing a clutch of challenges that are testing his ability to maintain economic and political stability at home and abroad.

“The party hopes that this occasion will add to its legitimacy and rally support at a time of internal and external challenges,” Adam Ni, China researcher at Macquarie University in Sydney, told AFP.  

US trade war negotiations have dragged on, and African swine fever has ravaged the country’s pig supply, sending pork prices soaring.

But the major headache is Hong Kong, where pro-democracy protesters plan to grab the spotlight from Beijing on Tuesday with their own rally against what they see as the erosion of their special freedoms.

Anti-government protesters hold Pepe the Frog plush toys as they make a human chain in the harbour area in Hong Kong on the eve of Communist China’s 70th anniversary. [Jorge Silva/Reuters]

Mocking the government

On Monday night they formed human chains using green frog soft toys which have come to symbolise the summer’s protests around Victoria Harbour.

The frog, named “Pepe” has become a widely popular protest meme in Hong Kong, appearing in endless posters and smartphone messaging stickers, even with the features of the territory’s leader Carrie Lam superimposed on its face.

“We use this frog in our communication, we sort of mock the government”, said Dorothy Chan, who took part in the protest.

Hong Kong has been embroiled for months in the worst unrest since it reverted to Chinese rule in 1997, with riot police and protesters engaged in running battles on the streets.

Authorities rejected a permit submitted by protesters for a planned march, but demonstrations were expected to go ahead regardless.

Police said on Monday they expected a “very serious violent attack” to mark the anniversary while the metro operator MTR closed some stations. Several large shopping malls announced they would close. Small scuffles were reported on Tuesday morning.

In an arrangement similar to that for the July 1 anniversary of the city’s handover from Britain to China – when protesters ransacked the legislature – guests attending Hong Kong’s traditional flag-raising ceremony were moved indoors.

Al Jazeera’s Scott Heidler said the authorities did not want the celebrations overshadowed, while protesters were eager to use the occasion to drive their message home.

“It’s a very, very important day generally for the People’s Republic of China but especially for Xi Jinping,” he said. “He has really pushed forward in his leadership this ‘one China’ policy and what we’ve seen here in Hong Kong with these protesters is going against that.

Hong Kong’s acting leader – Chief Secretary Matthew Cheung – said at the reception that the city had become “unrecognisable” because of the protests, which started in June.

Cheung said the Hong Kong government had shown the highest sincerity by kicking off a series of community dialogues last week and will use new thinking to address the deep-rooted social issues contributing to protester grievances.

Xi mentioned the ‘one country, two systems’ policy under which Hong Kong enjoys freedoms unseen on the mainland in his speech, stressing it was crucial for the “long-term prosperity and stability” of both Hong Kong and Macau, formerly a Portuguese colony.  

Guy Saint-Jacques, Canada’s Ambassador to China between 2012 and 2016, told Al Jazeera that “unity” remained one of China’s paramount goals.

“The problem with Hong Kong is that China doesn’t know how to handle the protests,” Saint-Jacques said from Montreal. “They don’t have a habit of democracy and they don’t know how it works. (And) they worry that the contestation in Hong Kong could spread to the mainland.”

China is staging its biggest ever military parade to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic. [Ng Han Guan/AP Photo]

Military might

Embattled Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam left for Beijing on Monday to celebrate Communist China’s birthday on the mainland, where she joined Communist Party grandees and other guests watching an air display, 15,000 soldiers march across Tiananmen, and a showcase of the country’s newest weapons. 

“Beijing wants to highlight its military modernisation, political unity, and determination to protect its interests,” Ni said.

The Communist Party has repeatedly defied the odds to remain in power for seven decades.

Under Mao, tens of millions of people died during the disastrous Great Leap Forward, and the country was plunged into violent chaos during the decade-long Cultural Revolution.

After Mao died in 1976, the party launched the reform and opening-up policy under paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, starting decades of breakneck growth and development.

But the Communist Party of China (CCP) retained a stranglehold on power, sending troops to end the biggest challenge to its rule in 1989 when pro-democracy protesters occupied Tiananmen Square.   

As expected, Xi referred in Tuesday’s address to his “Chinese dream”; the “rejuvenation” of a nation that is seeking what it sees as a return to former glory.

The Party wants to show on Tuesday “that under the leadership of the CCP, China is making strides towards becoming a rich and powerful country”, said Bonnie Glaser, senior adviser for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The Chinese leader has made clear that be believes only the Communist Party can make the country realise its dream – with him at the helm.

Pro-China supporters sing the Chinese national anthem on a ferry in Hong Kong. Three months of protests in the city have become an unprecedented challenge to the government in Beijing. [Tyrone Siu/Reuters]

The earnings results will offer up some insight into how well the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Max did during their first week of availability, though Apple no longer breaks out iPhone unit sales so specific data won’t be available.

Apple’s guidance for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2019 includes expected revenue of $61 to $64 billion and gross margin between 37.5 and 38.5 percent. If on the higher end of the range, Apple’s revenue will beat its Q4 2018 revenue of $62.9 billion.

Guidance for the holiday quarter provided by Apple in its Q4 earnings results will give us the most insight into how the company’s newest iPhones are selling.

The quarterly earnings statement will be released at 1:30 PM Pacific/4:30 PM Eastern, with a conference call to discuss the report taking place at 2:00 PM Pacific/5:00 PM Eastern. MacRumors will provide coverage of both the earnings release and conference call on October 30.

At launch and during the iOS 13 beta testing period, Look Around in Maps was limited to the Bay Area of California, Las Vegas, and parts of Hawaii, but Apple is working to expand it to additional locations.

Look Around can be used across New York City, from Manhattan and the Bronx to Brooklyn and Queens, and it is also available in Los Angeles from Burbank to Long Beach to Pomona. It’s not yet available in Anaheim, Riverside, and other cities further south.

Look Around can be used in the main Apple Maps view whenever there’s a pair of binoculars visible. Tapping the binoculars icon launches into a close-up street level view of your location in a little card, which can be tapped again to get a full screen view of Look Around.

Look Around can also be brought up when searching for specific supported locations by tapping on the Look Around card in the search results.

When you’re in Look Around mode, tapping on the display lets you move through the area, while tapping in a far off spot in the distance zooms in quickly in a little zoom maneuver that’s fun to watch.

In Look Around mode, notable points of interest like restaurants, businesses, parks, and more are highlighted, but the view is limited to what can be captured from the street since it uses data captured from Apple’s mapping vehicles.

Look Around will be expanding to additional locations in 2019 and 2020, and Apple is also still in the process of rolling out its updated maps. Just this morning, the updated maps feature came to New York City right ahead of Look Around.

For those interested in where the new Maps are available and where Look Around is rolling out, the MacRumors forums has a long thread where members share information when new maps features come to additional areas.

(Thanks, Alan and our other MacRumors forum members!)

Since launching in the United States five years ago, SmartNews, the news aggregation app that recently hit unicorn status, has quietly built a reputation for presenting reliable information from a wide range of publishers. The company straddles two very different markets: the U.S. and its home country of Japan, where it is one of the leading news apps.

SmartNews wants readers to see it as a way to break out of their filter bubbles, says Jeannie Yang, its senior vice president of product, especially as the American presidential election heats up. For example, it recently launched a feature, called “News From All Sides,” that lets people see how media outlets from across the political spectrum are covering a specific topic.

The app is driven by machine-learning algorithms, but it also has an editorial team led by Rich Jaroslovsky, the first managing editor of WSJ.com and founder of the Online News Association. One of SmartNews’ goal is to surface news that its users might not seek out on their own, but it must balance that with audience retention in a market that is crowded with many ways to consume content online, including competing news aggregation apps, Facebook and Google Search.

In a wide-ranging interview with Extra Crunch, Yang talked about SmartNews’ place in the media ecosystem, creating recommendation algorithms that don’t reinforce biases, the difference between its Japanese and American users and the challenges of presenting political news in a highly polarized environment.

Catherine Shu: One of the reasons why SmartNews is interesting is because there are a lot of news aggregation apps in America, but there hasn’t been one huge breakout app like SmartNews is in Japan or Toutiao in China. But at the same time, there are obviously a lot of issues in the publishing and news industry in the United States that a good dominant news app might be able to help, ranging from monetization to fake news.

Jeannie Yang: I think that’s definitely a challenge for everybody in the U.S. With SmartNews, we really want to see how we can help create a healthier media ecosystem and actually have publishers thrive as well. SmartNews has such respect for the publishers and the industry and we want to be good partners, but also really understand the challenges of the business model, as well as the challenges for users and thinking of how we can create a healthier ecosystem.

Back in 2015, Google’s ATAP team demoed a new kind of wearable tech at Google I/O that used functional fabrics and conductive yarns to allow you to interact with your clothing and, by extension, the phone in your pocket. The company then released a jacket with Levi’s in 2017, but that was expensive, at $350, and never really quite caught on. Now, however, Jacquard is back. A few weeks ago, Saint Laurent launched a backpack with Jacquard support, but at $1,000, that was very much a luxury product. Today, however, Google and Levi’s are announcing their latest collaboration: Jacquard-enabled versions of Levi’s Trucker Jacket.

These jackets, which will come in different styles, including the Classic Trucker and the Sherpa Trucker, and in men’s and women’s versions, will retail for $198 for the Classic Trucker and $248 for the Sherpa Trucker. In addition to the U.S., it’ll be available in Australia, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.K.

The idea here is simple and hasn’t changed since the original launch: a dongle in your jacket’s cuff connects to conductive yarns in your jacket. You can then swipe over your cuff, tap it or hold your hand over it to issue commands to your phone. You use the Jacquard phone app for iOS or Android to set up what each gesture does, with commands ranging from saving your location to bringing up the Google Assistant in your headphones, from skipping to the next song to controlling your camera for selfies or simply counting things during the day, like the coffees you drink on the go. If you have Bose noise-canceling headphones, the app also lets you set a gesture to turn your noise cancellation on or off. In total, there are currently 19 abilities available, and the dongle also includes a vibration motor for notifications.

What’s maybe most important, though, is that this (re-)launch sets up Jacquard as a more modular technology that Google and its partners hope will take it from a bit of a gimmick to something you’ll see in more places over the next few months and years.

“Since we launched the first product with Levi’s at the end of 2017, we were focused on trying to understand and working really hard on how we can take the technology from a single product […] to create a real technology platform that can be used by multiple brands and by multiple collaborators,” Ivan Poupyrev, the head of Jacquard by Google told me. He noted that the idea behind projects like Jacquard is to take things we use every day, like backpacks, jackets and shoes, and make them better with technology. He argued that, for the most part, technology hasn’t really been added to these things that we use every day. He wants to work with companies like Levi’s to “give people the opportunity to create new digital touchpoints to their digital life through things they already have and own and use every day.”

What’s also important about Jacquard 2.0 is that you can take the dongle from garment to garment. For the original jacket, the dongle only worked with this one specific type of jacket; now, you’ll be able to take it with you and use it in other wearables as well. The dongle, too, is significantly smaller and more powerful. It also now has more memory to support multiple products. Yet, in my own testing, its battery still lasts for a few days of occasional use, with plenty of standby time.

Poupyrev also noted that the team focused on reducing cost, “in order to bring the technology into a price range where it’s more attractive to consumers.” The team also made lots of changes to the software that runs on the device and, more importantly, in the cloud to allow it to configure itself for every product it’s being used in and to make it easier for the team to add new functionality over time (when was the last time your jacket got a software upgrade?).

He actually hopes that over time, people will forget that Google was involved in this. He wants the technology to fade into the background. Levi’s, on the other hand, obviously hopes that this technology will enable it to reach a new market. The 2017 version only included the Levi’s Commuter Trucker Jacket. Now, the company is going broader with different styles.

“We had gone out with a really sharp focus on trying to adapt the technology to meet the needs of our commuter customer, which a collection of Levi’s focused on urban cyclists,” Paul Dillinger, the VP of Global Product Innovation at Levi’s, told me when I asked him about the company’s original efforts around Jacquard. But there was a lot of interest beyond that community, he said, yet the built-in features were very much meant to serve the needs of this specific audience and not necessarily relevant to the lifestyles of other users. The jackets, of course, were also pretty expensive. “There was an appetite for the technology to do more and be more accessible,” he said — and the results of that work are these new jackets.

Dillinger also noted that this changes the relationship his company has with the consumer, because Levi’s can now upgrade the technology in your jacket after you bought it. “This is a really new experience,” he said. “And it’s a completely different approach to fashion. The normal fashion promise from other companies really is that we promise that in six months, we’re going to try to sell you something else. Levi’s prides itself on creating enduring, lasting value in style and we are able to actually improve the value of the garment that was already in the consumer’s closet.”

I spent about a week with the Sherpa jacket before today’s launch. It does exactly what it promises to do. Pairing my phone and jacket took less than a minute and the connection between the two has been perfectly stable. The gesture recognition worked very well — maybe better than I expected. What it can do, it does well, and I appreciate that the team kept the functionality pretty narrow.

Whether Jacquard is for you may depend on your lifestyle, though. I think the ideal user is somebody who is out and about a lot, wearing headphones, given that music controls are one of the main features here. But you don’t have to be wearing headphones to get value out of Jacquard. I almost never wear headphones in public, but I used it to quickly tag where I parked my car, for example, and when I used it with headphones, I found using my jacket’s cuffs easier to forward to the next song than doing the same on my headphones. Your mileage may vary, of course, and while I like the idea of using this kind of tech so you need to take out your phone less often, I wonder if that ship hasn’t sailed at this point — and whether the controls on your headphones can’t do most of the things Jacquard can. Google surely wants Jacquard to be more than a gimmick, but at this stage, it kind of still is.